Renegade Kid Open to Another Kickstarter Campaign, Suggests Demand for Moon Chronicles on Wii U

Renegade Kid is a popular developer and publisher on Nintendo download stores, enjoying particular success with Mutant Mudds on 3DS, also releasing the deluxe version — previously on Wii U — as a free update this week. Its titles often attract plenty of interest from the Nintendo Life community, for example, with the recent episodic release of Moon Chronicles and the upcoming Treasurenauts being further examples.

The studio has enjoyed the most success on Nintendo's portable system, but struggled to translate that userbase and positive reputation into crowdfunding success, raising less than 10% of its $580,000 target in a Cult County Kickstarter campaign earlier this year. There are multiple viewpoints on why the campaign fell short, with focus on the high funding goal and the choice of a new IP rather than an established brand.

While a chastening experience, studio co-founder Jools Watsham has taken to Twitter to gauge interest in more potential campaigns from the company. It's not an imminent move, but shows that the company hasn't given up on the concept.

I'm not in a hurry to do another kickstarter, but if we did, what would you guys like to see us kickstart? Can't do Dementium. Please RT.

Some responses in the timeline do suggest that Renegade Kid should stick to existing projects and a conventional business model, much as it's followed up until now. Where do you stand? Should Renegade Kid continue to develop and release download games through the standard publishing model, or do you feel it can find success through crowdfunding?

From the web

Welsh ex-pat Tom is responsible for the day-to-day running of the site. He's the guy to thank for the generally brilliant nature of the content which massages your eyeballs on a daily basis. Also has an unhealthy obsession with all things Bowser.

The problem is, there is only so many times you can release the same game. Particularly when it's not a fantastic game to begin with. It's a decent game for sure, but it's not amazing.

I've played it on DS. But didn't complete it. I'll consider it again on 3DS when it eventually makes its way to europe as a complete package. But by the time they crowd fund the Wii U version and get it developed (assuming successful funding) it'll probably be 2016.

Plus, they're not a particularly big/well known studio, they can't ask for ridiculous amounts of money like last time. I think there would be even less interest in Moon Chronicles for Wii U than for Cult County. The Cult County kickstarter should give them an idea of the amount of fans they have and the amount of money they can realistically ask for. If they ask for hundreds of thousands again to fund Moon Chronicles for Wii U, they're going to fail again.

Just stick with the 3DS and let it go. If they want to put Moon on Wii U, make it a new installment.

Instead of releasing the same game over and over again along with DLC over and over again, how's about you give us a Dementium 3 or Mutant mudds 2?

I will not be participating in anymore Kickstarter projects. Mighty N.9 was a waste of my $75 Koopa coins, i would of been happier putting a piece of that towards Shovel Knight's Kick starter campaign instead and spending the rest on a sizzling hot domino's pizza, a 2 liter of sparkling crystal pepsi and renting A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors on VHS at my local VideoShop!

@vonseuxI don't know what i was thinking, oh wait. An amazing spiritual successor to mega man that would knock our freakin' socks off. Boy was i wrong. The reason why I dropped $75(or i think it might of been $65) was to get a physical boxed copy of Mighty N.9. Down the road, these boxed copies might be worth half as much as lets say a CIB copy of mega man 9.

Too bad they will never be as pricey as my Mint Complete US in box copy of Jack Bros for the Virtual Boy....ahem, which i sold for a measly $95 3-4 years ago on eBay. sniffle*

it's now going for over $500.....or it was months ago the last time i actually saw it. It's extremely rare to get a US copy to pop up, let alone complete + inserts in the box, even then it's never in pristine-like condition like mine was. Instead, there's a slew of JAP versions which aren't worth very much.

@NbaJunkie
Agreed. The only reason i even want to try Moon Chronicles is because it's the only FPS in stereoscopic 3D on the 3DS, other than that....it's nothing special and extremely generic by all means. Mutant mudds was solid....But the visuals were extremely cheap, from the uninspired generic cookie cutter enemies, crappy 'n cheap mud splattering effects, lack luster environments. They should of went 8-bit with the entire thing, ala' shovel knight. Still, it was fun, challenging, had tight controls and some pretty great chip tunes.

I also enjoyed the first dementium.....but to be honest, i think i was more amazed by the stylus controls, and that it wasn't some mindless FP shooter.....It was extremely repetitive though, and the environments repeated themselves and looked nearly identicle. On the flip side, the music was dreary and unsettling, it ran in 60fps, those shrieking clown heads scared the gamePro poop out of me and the the experience worked wonderfully with the stylus controls, i guess you could say it was a revolution control-wise to the genre. Using the stylus to aim the flash light around was a-m-a-z-i-n-g.

They have a big enough name to be able to pursue their goals by themselves, or, in the case of specially ambitious projects, to strike deals with other studios or distributors. I love Kickstarter, but I only ever support interesting games from startup studios there (such as Lobodestroyo or Earthlock: Festival of Magic).

@WaveBoy Metroid Prime Hunters had that control setup first. Even the demo that was bundled with launch DS's. And the Dementium series is locked down by South Peak, the publisher, until the contract runs out (don't know date) and RK regains the rights to it.

I'm dubious of stylus controls for a FPS, so I haven't tried Moon yet. Moon HD just to hold me over til Prime 4? That I could get behind. But seeing as Treasurenauts doesn't even have a release date, I think that even fishing this idea on twitter is a bad move.

Ehhh, I dont see the need for Moon Chronicles U, unless the amount needed for that to happen is really cheap, probably wont be a successful KS. I know I wont be picking it up, it doesnt interest me much...if at all.

These guys need to regroup and go back to the drawing board. They should consider all the genres they like and pick one they've never been too involved with. A third person RPG with exp and loot, or a turn-based RPG akin to Divinity: Original Sin but with all the weirdness of an RK developed game. There are so many possibilities.

People on twitter are just going to yell out re-treads of old games....just move on and leave Moon Chronicles for what it is.

maybe, but moon chronicles on 3ds was a bit dissappointing. i dont think id personally care for it again even on the more comfortable home console. too bad cult county was asking for a rediculous amount of money with no worthwhile video to entice prospective backers. in the end the video they did show was a simple walk through a basic looking environment. whatever they do, they really need to get further along before putting it on kickstarter this time. i mean you cant expect $500k from people when only showing them artist renders.

I'm actually in agreement with other people here. They would see better results if they released a different game than Moon Chronicles. Unless they did some major updating to those graphics because the 3DS version looks a little bland to me. I was interested in Moon Chronicles but not interested enough to throw down money on it for the 3DS. They must have been on a crack binge when they put up 500k for Cult County campaign. If anything they should have kept it just for 3DS and improved on it (dust storms are a good excuse for draw distance). They have impressed me with Mutant Mudds but all their other games I have yet to bite on. I was looking at that ATV game on 3DS but it didn't look extremely polished. How about doing a genre that isn't represented on Wii U that much? Like a RTS or TBS? Sure Pikmin 3 didn't sell that hot but there are tons of strategy fans out there. Perhaps something like Valkyria Chronicles.

I would maybe help Kickstart a platformer. I love Mutant Mudds and Treasurenauts looks great.I just don't want or need small devs like this to do first person shooters. It takes too much time to make a really impressive first person shooter and to be honest I would only play it on PC anyway.